Mother Jones
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Scott Messick is a 54-year-old retired health insurance consultant from Conroe, Texas. His wife runs a small yarn shop. They’re both on his former employer’s health insurance plan for retirees, and Messick says that he and his wife together pay $964 a month in premiums, and a $12,000 annual deductible (the amount of money they have to pay out-of-pocket each year before the insurer will pay any expenses). Starting in January, their premiums will shoot up to $1,283 a month, he says. Earlier this month, Messick logged on to the federal insurance exchange website to shop for a new plan. (The federal government’s health insurance website has so many problems that many Americans are not able to register for the site, let alone compare plans. But Messick got through.) Although the Messicks’ income is too high to qualify for a subsidy, they found a plan that would save them $6,000 a year in premium payments, and another $5,000 or so on their deductible. Despite the fact that Obamacare could cut their health care costs almost in half, the Messicks might not switch plans. Why? Because Republicans might repeal the law. “My wife is concerned that Republicans will try to get rid of this thing, and if they do, we’ve jumped out of a retiree plan,” Messick says. “We’d be left with nothing.”
Many retiree health plans stipulate that you can only enroll in the plan once, and if you drop coverage—say, by buying cheaper insurance on the exchange—you’re out for good. “The door swings one way,” Messick explains.
That one-way door could be a problem for many Americans if Obamacare is repealed, says Tim Jost, a healthcare law scholar at Washington and Lee University School of Law who has consulted with the administration on the implementation of the law. If people like the Messicks buy cheaper insurance on the exchange and Republicans gut the Affordable Care Act, insurance industry prices and practices could return to what they were pre-Obamacare. That means insurers could go back to rejecting older folks, who tend to have chronic health problems, or charging them astronomical prices. Messick has chronic back problems; his wife has suffered a minor stroke and has migraines. “Both my wife and I are uninsurable” in the private market, Messick says, adding that a few years ago he ran an “experiment” and tried to purchase insurance outside of his employer plan and was “turned down flat.”
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